Chapter 188
Cheap TricksAnnie charged into the tunnel mouth, ducking her massive head beneath the glowing edge of the blast hole. The passage was wide enough to fit her body, barely, but the ceiling scraped against the top of her sail, forcing it to bend flat against her spine. Stone walls pressed in on both sides, her metal scales grinding against limestone as she pushed forward.
Lights lined the tunnel at uneven intervals, casting the space in dim light. The passage curved ahead, sloping downward.
She rounded the bend and broke into an open chamber.
The room stretched maybe thirty feet across. Tables filled the center, cards and cups scattered across their surfaces. Chemical lanterns hung from hooks driven into the stone ceiling. Sleeping mats lined one wall. A rack of weapons, mostly old rifles and ammunition boxes, occupied another.
Eight people were on the floor. Some on their knees, hands over their ears. Others stumbling to their feet, dazed. Blood trickled from several sets of ears, courtesy of the fireball’s concussive blast punching into the tunnels.
Annie snarled.
The sound filled the chamber, reverberating off every surface. Primal, resonant, and far louder than anything that should exist underground.
The reaction was immediate. Two of the closest scrambled backward on all fours. One tripped over a chair and went down hard. Three others bolted for the tunnels branching off the far side of the room without looking back.
The two nearest to her froze.
Annie lowered her head and charged. Her skull caught the first one center mass, launching him into the far wall where he hit with a crack and slid to the floor. Her shoulder clipped the second, spinning him off his feet and into a table that shattered under the impact.
Her tail swept behind her. She felt it connect with something solid and heard a yelp followed by a heavy thud.
By the time she turned, the chamber was empty except for three unconscious bodies and a lot of broken furniture. The rest had vanished down the branching tunnels, their footsteps fading fast.
She snorted. That wasn’t even a workout.
Footsteps sounded behind her, casual and unhurried. Augustus stepped into the chamber, wand in one hand, a faint shimmer rippling across his body like heat haze. Shield magic. He surveyed the wreckage with raised eyebrows.
“Nice work.”
Annie growled in response, which she hoped conveyed thanks but probably just came across as threatening.
Augustus pointed his wand toward the right tunnel. “I’ve got this one. You take the left.”
She growled again, lower this time.
He chuckled and headed into the right tunnel, the shimmer flickering around him as the passage narrowed. His footsteps faded quickly.
Annie turned toward the left tunnel and pushed her head inside.
It was narrower than the entrance. Her skull fit, but the passage cinched tight around her shoulders. She pushed harder, angling her body, trying to wedge herself through. Stone groaned against metal. Her sail scraped the ceiling and folded painfully against her back.
She pushed again. Gained another few inches. Her front claws dug into the stone floor, dragging herself forward.
The tunnel walls held firm. Her shoulders caught, scales grinding against limestone on both sides. She couldn’t move forward. Couldn’t turn her head enough to look back.
She roared in frustration, the sound deafening in the confined space. Chunks of stone rattled loose from the ceiling.
One more try. She flexed everything, straining forward with every muscle. The stone didn’t budge.
Annie let out a long, rumbling growl and began to shrink. The transformation rolled through her in waves, the Saurian form dissolving. Tail receding. Sail collapsing. Mass pulling inward as her body condensed, the metal reforming into a much smaller frame until she stood in the tunnel at her full, unimpressive five-foot-two.
She sighed. Being a big, bad-ass dinosaur hunting her enemies was way cooler. Her Output had climbed high enough over the past months that maintaining a complete metallic conversion was no longer a dream, but that still didn’t beat being tall and intimidating.
The tunnel curved deeper, the lights growing sparser. Shadows pooled between them. Her footsteps rang against the stone floor, echoing ahead of her.
Two heads popped out from alcoves on either side of the passage. Rifles swung toward her.
They opened fire.
The muzzle flashes lit the tunnel in strobing white. Bullets struck her chest, her arms, her face. Some pinged off at sharp angles, ricocheting into the walls. Others flattened on impact, mushrooming against her skin before dropping to the floor with tiny clinks. A few melded into her surface, the rounds partially bonding with her metal where they hit hardest.
Annie kept walking.
It stung. Each impact carried a sharp little bite, like that time Alexander flicked her forehead with his stupid cybernetic finger. Annoying more than painful. She glanced down at her chest where three flattened rounds had fused to her skin and brushed them off with an irritated swipe. The bits separated cleanly, the deformed bullets clattering to the floor.
The rifles clicked empty.
Both men stared at her. Then at each other.
They dropped the rifles and ran.
“No, you don’t.”
Annie Redlined her legs and launched forward. Every fiber in her calves and thighs fired simultaneously, zero hesitation between thought and movement. The twenty feet between them vanished in a single explosive leap, the stone floor cracking beneath her push-off.
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Her right fist caught the first man in the hip. She pulled the punch as much as she could, but Redline didn’t do gentle. He screamed and hit the wall with a meaty thud, then crumpled to the floor and stayed there.
Her left hand shot forward, fingers elongating into a single smooth spike that punched through the second man’s calf. He went down shrieking, hands grabbing at his leg as blood pooled around the wound.
Annie retracted the spike and stepped over both of them, flicking blood from her fingers as she passed. She rolled her neck, feeling the metal shift and settle.
The tunnel opened into a wider corridor. She slowed, taking in the details as she passed.
Bedrooms carved into the limestone, each one fitted with actual bed frames and mattresses. A communal bathroom with plumbing that ran somewhere deeper into the rock. A cooking area with pots hanging from iron hooks, the remnants of a meal still on the counter, and a stone chimney that angled upward through the ceiling toward what she assumed was a concealed surface vent.
For a bunch of traffickers hiding in a cliff, they’d built themselves a surprisingly comfortable nest.
She moved deeper. The corridor branched twice, both times into dead ends serving as additional storage. Everything organized and labeled in Arabic. She’d cracked a few open to check, finding food, water, and medical supplies.
Movement flickered ahead. Someone ducked out from behind a support pillar at the corridor’s end, leveling something at her that wasn’t a rifle.
The energy bolt caught her in the shoulder.
Annie hissed. That one actually hurt. A sharp, burning sting that radiated outward from the impact point, the energy dispersing across her skin in crackling arcs. It wouldn’t slow her down, but it made her pay attention.